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I am naturally shy, so even now, several years after publication, it still surprises me that my book, It’s Not What You Say, It’s The Way You Say It!, is all about emotion. It’s about the way you come across, not the comfortable rationale of what you say.

Starting out armed with the experience of over 1000 pitches –many successful, some not but learning from both – I intended to write mainly for the business reader, quoting case histories together with lessons for success. This format has however been done well by others and I was determined to be if not better, then different.

My talented editor pointed out that the pitching principles in my first outline were the same for all live persuasive communication, principles for the most part formulated by the ancient teachers of rhetoric over two thousand years ago. It made complete sense to broaden potential readers to all who present or speak, interview or audition, preach or propose. This in turn determined a communication approach in the book that was easy and accessible to all readers, an approach that was itself a demonstration of the way to come across with impact, bringing ideas alive with wit and visual imagination.

While the principles are indeed common, there is also in my view one basic error which lies at the heart of many unsuccessful pitches or interviews. It is an error based on the very human concern to keep on trying to improve the content – the script, the PowerPoint, the argument – right up until the last possible moment.

Much midnight oil is burnt striving to perfect or find a competitive edge. And all of this reasonable, or rational, use of resource, effort and energy restricts, sometimes to zero, time spent on injecting the emotional energy essential to performance.

We forget that people act on emotion, then justify with reason.

We ignore what our experience tells us, as did Dale Carnegie ‘When dealing withpeople, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.’ Or as Maya Angelou so beautifully said ‘I’ve learnt that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’

With words like these inspiring me, it will be no surprise that my central premise, developed through the book, is that emotion is at the heart of any successful pitch.

To bring this central thought alive in a compelling way, some 50 ideas are explored using clever illustration and creative headlines, aiming to stimulate and educate in a memorable way. Through the book, getting to the emotional heart is considered in three ways. What is the emotional response you seek? How do you resist content pressure to give priority and space for emotion? How can you bring the right levels of emotion to your performance?

The importance of getting under the skin of your audience is covered as is the essential skill of listening, really listening, something often overlooked in the excitement of a pitch. Without this, the emotional responses sought will be easily missed but there will in all situations be two responses that are paramount.

They were very well articulated in a perceptive and revealing article some years ago in a marketing journal in the UK. The writer was head of a company, AAR, which specialised in guiding clients through the agency selection process. He had gained unique insight from observing his clients firstly receiving the pitches, over 600 of them, and then discussing their decisions.

Surprise, surprise, his conclusions were that it was not the brilliance of the proposed strategy or creative solution that carried the day. More often than not the decision came down to their assessment of two simple questions they asked themselves, the first being:

‘Will I like these people?’ (as partners/suppliers/staff ) with an allied ‘Do they (the pitch team) like each other?

Both are loaded emotionally. Of course, most people pitching will pass the likeability test in their normal lives but are they as likeable under the tension of the competitive arena? They may be worrying about their words, their visual aids, often subject to last minute changes (the curse of PowerPoint), the hand-overs. A team that may be the best of friends can, under pressure, easily give off vibes that signal otherwise. If they do, the decision will go against them. Rehearsal is discussed later but worth noting that in my experience ‘rehearsal makes nice people nicer.’

The second question the decision takers ask themselves is this, “How much do these people really want my business? How hungry are they?

Hunger is not to be mistaken for desperation. Nor is it the same as the polished professional enthusiasm you expect in any pitch. Hunger is not something you proclaim. You ooze it by being hell-bent on doing more, asking more, leaving no proverbial stone un-turned.

Judging the emotional response is as critical in the one-on-one interview as it is on a global stage. Ten years ago London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics. Five cities were competing in the final live pitch to the International Olympic Committee with Paris, in rational terms of delivering a successful event, the clear favourites. London’s hopes rested on persuading the IOC to act on emotion.

They did this through a highly emotional appeal expressed as “London’s vision is to reach young people all around the world, to connect them with the inspirational power of the Games, so that they are inspired to choose sport”.

They knew if they failed to connect, they would fail

Many months after London won the bid, Lord Coe was asked if there was one thing that he felt was at the heart of their success. His reply: “It was all down to the emotionalconnection.”

A study of this bid, widely discussed as a case history demonstrating the perfect pitch, shows that a relentless attention to detail and massive resource were committed to the essential Technical submission – the ‘rational’ phase. During this however the London team never lost sight of the emotional end game. They built ‘emotional priority’ into their preparation and went into the final live pitch knowing the emotional levers to use. Or, in other words, they understood how to arrange and emphasise the key messages that would best resonate and persuade.

The concept of ‘arrangement’ is not new. It is one of the Five Cannons of Rhetoric defined by the ancient writers such as Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian who said: “The whole art of oratory, as the most and greatest writers have taught, consist of five parts: invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery.”

Often overlooked, it is the clever arrangement of your argument that enables you to express it to greatest effect. The Greek word was taxis– to arrange your troops for battle. A nice thought! To win the (pitch) battle you need to lead with your key attacking force- your proposition or promise, (see Coe’s vision).

Don’t bury it somewhere in the depths of the charts. Describe this central thought in words that lend themselves to passionate articulation, not like so many dry corporate mission statements.

I suggest in my book you think of them as “words to woo your lover…”You should be able to condense your story or presentation to 50 persuasive words that capture the hearts, not just the minds of your audience. Some elevator pitches miss out on the emotional component. Shakespeare, of course, said it best “Thou cannot speak of that thou dost not feel”

Then, pursuing the concept of arrangement, my suggestion is to obey the ‘rule of three’ (omnium trium perfectum). Or, put another way, don’t make the mistake of presenting a whole ‘shopping list ’of facts and arguments. Lists have their place on a fridge door, as a reminder of what to do or buy. Lists do not have a place when you want to communicate with your audience. They deny emotional expression. You may have 20 burning issues to get across, but the audience will not easily take them in, or be moved by them, if you do not have a simple structure that guides their listening.

To make life easier for them you need to arrange your arguments (your troops) into no more than three themes that support your promise or subject. So, ‘burning issues’ can be arranged into ‘hot’, red hot’ and ‘flaming.’ Each of these can be separately developed but with no more than three supporting points.

Finally, having identified the emotional response you want and then arranging your messages to allow emotion in, what can be done to perform with emotion on the day? Rising to the occasion and outperforming your rivals, rather than the great solution, will so often be the difference between getting the job or the assignment, or not.

This is the essential role of rehearsal. In my view it is the most neglected and ignored ingredient of pitch preparation yet is your best return on investment.

Delivering a pitch, whether from a platform or across a boardroom table or over coffee at Starbucks, you are on stage.

You need to tap into the actor in you. Connecting emotionally with a large group or a single interviewer in conversation, calls for a performance that reaches out, bringing emotional resonance to the words. Actors start off fully confident in their brilliant scripts written by a William Shakespeare or a Tennessee Williams. They are not worried about their content. All they are concerned with is how they can make their script come alive to their audience. No matter how experienced they may be, they rely on rehearsal to gauge their performance and its impact.

They don’t do this alone, practising to a mirror. That can be a useful exercise for checking timing or your memory, but it is not rehearsal. Rehearsal requires that you have someone standing in as an audience, like a director, who can tell you how you come cross. You can’t judge yourself!

My advice to any presenter is to find a trusted colleague to rehearse you, and, where possible, rehearse each pitch or speech before you deliver it. Ask them not to comment on the words but on your performance, on the way you said it and on how it makes them feel and think.

Was my energy level high? Was it clear? Was my passion evident? (Words with huge meaning can be ‘lost’ in translation if spoken poorly. In any pitch you need the balance of logos (appealing to reason) and pathos (appealing to the emotion).Was I making eye contact? If you are looking down constantly, reading from notes, you lose connection and lose your audience. In rehearsal you can identify this and other mistakes and correct them. Was my body language open and expressive? Was I confident? Was I likeable? And, finally, was I myself, or better?

As Oscar Wilde reminded us, “Be yourself; everyone else is taken.”

The ‘sin’ of failing to rehearse is wrapped up in my earlier premise that time spent on content, at the expense of performance is the common error. The excuse for not rehearsing is given as lack of time (although in truth it is one of many avoidance mechanisms!)

Too much time is spent being rational, striving to create perfect content. Too little time is spent perfecting delivery, being emotionally on song. If you want to win, let your emotions show and take this advice written two thousand years ago

“I would not hesitate to assert that a mediocre speech supported by all the power of delivery will be more impressive than the best speech unaccompanied by such power.’ Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory

Making the wedding speech of a lifetime or the crucial must-win pitch, the challenge is to rise to the occasion and perform at your best when it really matters. Why not go further and aim for a moment of sprezzatura.

The sixteenth century Italian philosopher, Baldassari Castiglione, described the ideal approach as having two necessary principles. The first, ‘decoro’, is the graft, practice, preparation and rehearsal, the essential foundations for any performance.

The second is ‘sprezzatura’,

This is a word he coined. It has been described as the vital spark, the flash of lightening, recklessness, the art of nonchalance, a touch of the ridiculousness, rehearsed spontaneity, studied carelessness, practised naturalness, joy in improvisation, embracing the unknown and enjoying it …

We see it in the greatest of stage actors, musicians and athletes. Not every-time though, even from a Yo-yo Ma, a Kate Blanchet or a Usain Bolt. For us ‘normal players’ it will be even more elusive but worth chasing,

Assuming you have done all the hard graft, the preparation, the rehearsal allow yourself to let go. Be free in the moment.

Unlike actors who benefit from a script by, say, Shakespeare, most speakers or presenters have to write their own words. This can lead to a common error among the less experienced of getting so caught up in getting the words right that they ignore the emotional connection they must make with their audience, whether one or a hundred.,

When we watch a play we expect to be engaged in an emotional experience but sometimes forget that an interviewer or conference delegate ‘audience’ also expects a level of emotional engagement. Professional actors know how to play on our emotions. This is how one answered some questions

Where does the emotion come from, the script or the actor?

Emotion is a difficult word. It’s quite ambiguous. I looked up the definition and it says ‘A strong feeling deriving from one’s circumstances,’ which I think is the perfect answer. It is neither the words, nor the actor, but the circumstances of the script that will evoke emotion in the actor, if the actor allows them self to be available to emotion. The given circumstances include: what kind of environment the character is in, what they are doing, what they want in the scene, etc.

The script tells the actor where the actor is and what kind of emotional dilemma they have, and then it is the actor’s job to find a way to make the emotional dilemma and the given circumstances truthful. So the answer is both. It is a marriage of the two.

Can you fake emotion?

You tell me. If you can fool your audience you are a very good actor. I can’t. Maybe Judi Dench can. I can only try to be truthful. I’m not very good at the craft of pretending but I respect those who are. I think usually my way is to focus on what I want in the scene and let the emotion happen naturally, for example: I want to get my dream job.

Now I think about what is at stake if I don’t get my dream job: I will feel like I have never reached my full potential, I will not be able to express something I need to express, I will feel complacent and cowardly for not trying, etc. If I think about this, I start feeling all kinds of emotions – passion, excitement, fear, inspiration, and joy. But it happens naturally. Focus on what you want and why you want it. Make it personal to you!

People try to be emotional in their performance, rather than just trying to get what they want and to affect their audience or fellow actors. Sometimes you don’t have to show any emotion, but you can make people weep, just by saying what you are saying simply and clearly with commitment and conviction.

A recent article by Craig Brown in the Daily Mail noted that many political biographers are attempting -without much success- to emulate thriller writers like Elmore Leonard and Dashiell Hammett, well known for their dramatic opening lines. Best of them, Raymond Chandler; “The firsttime I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in the back of a Rolls Royce Silver Wraith…”

Apparently, Cherie Blair starts her In Speaking For Myself with “O.K, guys, that’s it. Let’s do the business.” While not the subtlest of phrases, you can’t question her intention to make a powerful, lasting first impression as important to the book, play, movie, speech, poem or song as to the pitch.

The film Patton grabbed attention with “Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his.”

Gentler but unforgettable words from Jane Austen set the scene for Pride and Prejudice, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Two contemporary songs capture instantly different moods, and personalities, Amy Winehouse’s “They triedto make me go to rehab / I said no-no-no.” And Sinead O’Connor with, “It’s been 7 hours and 15 days / since you took my love away.”

Two rather different love poems, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “How I do love thee? Let me count theways,” and Andrew Marvel (in pitch-mode) To His Coy Mistress ,” Had we but world enough and time/ this coyness lady were no crime.

Of course pitch teams do not number a Shakespeare to give them a “to be or not to be” opening but this is no excuse for not having any kind of planned start, a feature of many otherwise reasonable pitches. It is a wasted opportunity and a final quote – if you have not yet watched the ‘winning movie’- “Remember, a winning start means a winning finish!”

BBC Radio 4 reminded us of the importance of improvisation when they played an excerpt of a sermon from 2007 by Tony Crockett, then Bishop of Bangor. He must have been an outstanding speaker, As well as a lover of jazz.

He talked about the great musicians, such as George Shearer. He noted their willingness to play with a theme, to improvise and see where it goes, letting the rhythm take them. Improvisation he suggested was an exciting way to engage with life Continue reading →